Bethany offering up coffee and a free bus ride

Citizens of Bethany Beach will have an opportunity to meet and catch up with their representatives on the town council this week, as the Town hosts its first-ever “Coffee with the Council” on Monday, Nov. 14, from 9 to 10 a.m. at the town hall.

With a continued focus on improving communication with their constituents, the council has put forward the notion for the coffee events as a chance for citizens to meet with the council members, share light refreshments and tell the council what is on their minds. If there is sufficient interest, they said, the plan is to continue to hold the coffees on a regular basis.

This month’s Coffee with the Council leads directly into the council’s monthly workshop, set for Monday, Nov. 14, starting at 10 a.m. The council workshop has become a venue for the council to discuss proposed council agenda items, consider new ideas and fine-tune proposals ahead of the regular council meetings held each month. This month’s regular council meeting is set for 2 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 18.

The new coffee events will allow the council to then take citizen concerns and ideas from the public event into the council-focused workshops, where they could be considered for implementation.

The Town is also putting forth a new idea of its own, with the recent announcement that it is considering offering a free transportation service to citizens who are not comfortable driving or who have no convenient method of transportation.

If there is enough interest, the town plans to work out the details of a system in which the town trolley would pick up residents at their homes or some other pre-designated locations once a week and take a group to local grocery stores and pharmacies. It’s a clear nod to the town’s large population of retirees, as well as the vagaries of them living in a town that is sparsely populated in the winter and sees heavy traffic in the summer.

Anyone with an interest in this type of transportation service, or who knows someone who might be, is being asked to call the town manager’s office at (302) 537-3771 or email admin@townofbethanybeach.com and have their name placed on a list. If the Town receives a large enough response, they plan to work out the details of the service in a manner that suits the respondents and implement it as soon as practical, according to Town Manager Cliff Graviet.

The council has also recently added an audio broadcast via Internet for citizens to listen to the monthly council meetings live, as they happen. The meetings are also being recorded so that they can be accessed after-the-fact via the Town Web site, at www.townofbethanybeach.com.

At their October workshop meeting, the council authorized Graviet to purchase two video cameras to add to the Web broadcast system, so that those monitoring the meetings online can better determine who is speaking and other details that can’t be conveyed through audio alone.